Nexus 5

The Nexus 5 is the fifth phone in Google's Nexus line, and the second from South Korean manufacturer LG, following up the Nexus 4, released in late 2012. As is the case with previous Nexuses the Nexus 5 was the launch device for a new version of Android — in this case Android 4.4 KitKat. Naturally the Nexus 5 received an update to Android 5.0 Lollipop as soon as it was available in November 2014.

The Nexus 5, very roughly based off the LG G2, comes in with a 4.95-inch 1080p display and is powered by a 2.26GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 CPU, with 2GB of RAM and 16 or 32GB of storage. There's an 8-megapixel OIS (optical image stabilization) rear camera and 1.3-megapixel front-facer. There's also Qi wireless charging under the back, fitting in with Google's push towards that standard.

The styling of the Nexus 5 is pretty basic, even when you see it in its white and bright red color options, and the back looks very similar to that of the Nexus 7 (2013). There's really no design flair to be seen here — it's very much a "basic" smartphone that doesn't try to do anything out of the ordinary.

Sprint and T-Mobile both sold the Nexus 5 for use on their networks, but it also was sold directly to consumers from the Play Store for use on those networks as well as AT&T or any other GSM carrier in the U.S. Internationally the Nexus 5 was sold as a slightly different model with radio bands suited for international use.